MINNEAPOLIS, June 10, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. ("Protea") announced today that it has launched a new web-based commercial mass spectrometry service, named ProteaScope, that enables researchers to navigate across their tissue sections using high resolution microscopy to pinpoint specific morphological structures for mass spectrometry analysis. Diseases such as cancer have traditionally been diagnosed through the microscopic examination of the morphological features of tissue and cells - a technique known as histology. ProteaScope is a first-of-its-kind microscopy-driven mass spectrometry platform that provides additional levels of molecular information to complement traditional histologic examination. Based on Protea's LAESI® technology, exclusively licensed from George Washington University, the new platform was developed through the integration of fiber optics, LAESI, and high resolution microscopy and mass spectrometry.